Searching Robert Reid’s name online shows he’s an I.T. consultant from Ontario who likes Pink Floyd. It also claims he’s a “total loser who treats women like crap and thinks he is better then [sic] everyone.” So reads an anonymously posted screed on CheaterVille.com that includes Reid’s full name and face.

The post has netted 2.3 million views.

“The information there is totally made up,” says Reid. “It’s crazy.”

CheaterVille.com is one of dozens of “online shaming” websites that are lauded and despised for allowing people’s online reputations to be defined by anonymous users.

A growing trend

James McGibney founded the CheaterVille.com site on Valentine’s Day 2011, after learning a fellow U.S. Marine had been cheated on during their deployment.

“Wouldn’t it be good if a site can warn someone about people like that,” thought McGibney, whose site has become “an online-dating resource tool” where thousands have weeded out potential mates with checkered pasts.

Online shaming comes in many forms. Last month, the founder of a Twitter account dedicated to bad Edmonton parking started a Calgary version. The site reposts photos tagged “DBagParkingYYC,” showing everything from pickup trucks straddling sidewalks to sedans splayed diagonally across four spots.

There’s even “dog shaming,” where pet owners write confessions of eating household objects or urinating in questionable places and photograph their sombre mutts posing with the placards.

Other sites have more serious implications, like BadTenantsList.ca, which allows landlords to call out deadbeat occupants without proof. Another blog, Public Shaming, has come under fire for aggregating racist tweets by teenagers that show their names and faces, some of whom report being suspended or fired from jobs.

In the case of CheaterVille.com, Reid says he’s lucky to have a common name and that he’s not dating, but he admits it can seriously impact other people’s lives.

“These things can define who you are to a lot of people,” says Reid, the only one of 10 Calgarians bashed on the website who agreed to an interview with the Herald.

A legal grey zone

McGibney is quick to mention that CheaterVille.com moderators remove any information that could compromise personal safety. But he’s unapologetic that his site shows up prominently in Google searches, and could ruin someone’s reputation without any proof.

“We’re really no different than Facebook or Twitter; Twitter’s not gonna remove a tweet,” he says, adding that people should think critically about the quality of allegations lobbed online.

Once posted online, only the original poster can remove the information. There is an appeals process — which costs $199 U.S. — where third-party lawyers review the case and have it removed if it’s overwhelmingly false.

Reid only saw the link two years after it was posted in 2010, when a Florida law firm messaged him offering their costly services. He put the posting on his Facebook page, saying the allegations were worth a laugh.

“If you take ownership over something you can diminish what someone’s trying to do.”

University of Calgary law professor Emily Laidlaw says there are few options for Canadians distressed to find their online reputations in tatters, “which is of great concern given the significant personal and professional impact such comments can have.”

She says U.S.-based sites raise their own issues, with laxer libel laws and a demonstrated reluctance to enforce Canadian defamation judgments. Even more complicated: the sites house but don’t create allegations.

“They are ‘intermediaries’ and this is a grey area of the law that is still developing,” Laidlaw says. “This makes it more difficult to pin liability on them.”

Cheaterville.com’s founder McGibney notes that under the U.S. Communications Decency Act of 1996, American companies aren’t liable for defamatory information posted by other people.

But Laidlaw says the U.S. approach is a global exception. The only thing these people can do is try to have a judge in either country compel the site to release its data on that user — a drastic step that isn’t always technically possible which requires substantial proven damage.

‘Therapeutic value’

McGibney believes his site gives victims a voice and stops people from harming others.

He gave an example of a mother of four who found voice-mail messages on her husband’s phone from another woman he’d been seeing for years.

“I think people do see some sort of therapeutic value,” he says. “I don’t know if it’s the same when someone parks crooked — that’s hilarious — but we get emailed every day from women and men saying this site has helped them deal with these situations.”

U of C computer science professor Tom Keenan writes extensively about online shaming in Technocreep, a book about online privacy that hits Canadian shelves next month.

“Online shaming is on the rise,” he says. “It’s highly-effective and available to most everybody.

“A guy used to stand in front of a Calgary car dealership with a sign ‘they cheated me’ and probably reached 1,000 people a day,” says Keenan, comparing that approach with the infamous “United Breaks Guitars” video that had United Airlines apologizing to a disgruntled musician.

“With the right post, you can reach millions with your message, shaming a person or a corporation.”

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Little recourse for Canadians with reputations ruined by online shaming